Once the federal budget is balanced, the Conservatives plan to double the TFSA’s annual allowance to $10,000 and to permit income splitting for couples with children under 18. These are costly schemes, each running ultimately to billions a year.

While these proposals may appear to have wide appeal, most Canadians would gain nothing from them. The tax savings would flow disproportionately to the highest earners. Moreover, the ostensible goals of these proposals would be much better achieved by major changes to their structures.

Feed the rich

I look forward to having a discussion on the best way to reduce Canadians’ tax burden, as opposed to the usual discussions on how best to screw the average Canadian out of their money and what pointless projects to spend it on.

You can always tell left wing types, they always get hostile when people talk about benefitting families.

Government doesn’t produce wealth, so tax changes won’t cost it anything. What it will do is encourage people in private sector to save more of their money.

Tax savings always flow disproportionally to the highest earners because they pay the most in taxes. Why don’t we have flat tax, minimum guaranteed income and stop with the social engineering which isn’t working.

Stable families bring up the happiest children and so on and so forth …. virtuous circle. You reward good behaviour and you will get more of it.

I know Canadian society prefers mother’s who murder their babies, and we seem to have no problem when pedophiles continually molest children, but families are actually good for individuals and society and should be encouraged.

Why do left wing types get so angered when government tries to encourage families?

While the 2006 census tells us that married families are steadily declining, studies show that marriage is the family structure in which Canadians prefer to raise their children. And overall, say experts, it is the best option for growing children for reasons that go far beyond those of economics.

According to the census, 65.7 per cent of Canada’s 5.6 million children 14 and under lived with married parents, down from 68.4 per cent in 2001. One parent families (OPF) in comparison have remained stable with only a slight increase to 15.9 per cent in 2006, up from 15.7 per cent in 2001.

I love politics and have peculiar job – from home, I do research for Detroit consulting firm and look at lots of newspapers, mags and trade journals on daily basis looking for specific info to answer consultants questions.

My missus says that looking at all this info from around world everyday for work means I have a glib answer for everything under the sun.

Also, this is politics blog and I love politics. If this was biology or algebra or cinema or tv ….. etc. blog, I would not have much to say.

This has very little to do with benefiting families. It benefits rich people who happen to have a particular kind of family.

Right wingers always bemoan social engineering, except when it’s their kind of social engineering (widows, widowers, and single parents get nothing out of income splitting–go order a bride from eastern europe if you have to).

Rich people don’t need TFSA’s. They have a plethora of ways of tax avoidance and wealth building. The TFSA is just one more. The prime beneficiary of TFSA’s is poor people who have the will to save, as the TFSA is the ONLY real wealth building tool at their disposal.

Poor people don’t need and cannot use $10k in contribution room per year. You are arguing to leave it at $5k because, as you say, the rich do not need it and the poor cannot use it, by definition. Sounds fine to me.

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